Desert Water Wins: Stucco Check Dams & Dome Prep!
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we tackle monsoon
In this episode of Occupy the Land, Donna and Ernie embark on a supply run to bolster their Arizona desert homestead! They snag a discounted flex-fuel generator from Harbor Freight for reliable backup power and secure four food-grade IBC totes to store nearly 3,000 gallons of pool water for gardening, chickens, and construction. Battling a chilly 63°F morning, they also address a leaky tire on their dump trailer and plan to enhance their workshop setup. With recent rains turning the desert green, they share their excitement for upcoming tree planting and composting efforts, showcasing the vibrant progress of their off-grid oasis!
Transcript:
00:00:47:12 – 00:01:09:08
Hello. Welcome back to occupy the land. Occupy the land for. Donna and I are out on a mission today. We got some supplies and stuff that we’re taking. We got to, you know, dump trailer in the back to haul some stuff. And, it’s just the sun’s just starting to come up out here in the desert going into town, you know?
00:01:09:10 – 00:01:31:26
All right. Donna. What are we getting? What’s the project today? Well, we’ve had to wait for a couple of weeks for a sale on this generator. Harbor freight saved quite a bit of money, so we planned on doing a couple things, but we had to cover it anyway. So the generator and harbor freight. And then we’re going to get water tanks that are, I don’t know, they’re in town somewhere.
00:01:31:26 – 00:01:56:09
We’ll meet up with the guy and, we want to save the water from our pool because it’s, you know, it’s almost 3000 gallons worth of water that we can put in these totes and use for gardening, chickens, construction, the house I wouldn’t be drinking it, but, definitely can use for, you know, we need the totes anyway, so it’s a good thing to have.
00:01:56:12 – 00:02:17:14
So we’re doing that. And I noticed that at 63 degrees out, I don’t think we’ve been in 63 degree weather since the spring. So it’s kind of cool. It’s kind of it feels cold to me. I don’t know about you, but maybe it’s nice for everybody else, but for us, 63 is freezing. Well, I got a long sleeve shirt on.
00:02:17:14 – 00:02:38:23
Tell you that? Still in shorts. I have a sweatshirt on, which is? I haven’t worn a sweatshirt all summer. I think it’s up. Down almost a 50s. I mean, you know, it’s once the equalizes the sun, you know, to where it’s, you know, half days and night or same length. It starts to cool off pretty quick. You, me lighten it up.
00:02:38:23 – 00:03:01:07
The sun start to break the horizon. The, So we’re out supply and today we may, you know, stop by gets this and that and so on. But the main thing is, And we got a steam valve leak. What are the tires on the double axle fuel dump trailer that we have? So we’re probably going to stop by discount Tire and get a freebie, fix that.
00:03:01:09 – 00:03:24:19
And then, because we got tires there and then, on the way back. But it’s old. They’re not going to be good. It’s not full IBC. Totes. So they’re not heavy. So it’s just. Right. Was kind of low on one tires and the other pair fine. So it’s fine. But on the way back here we’ll go ahead and have that checked then.
00:03:24:21 – 00:03:53:08
But the deal on the generator is that they were, it’s a flex fuel, propane and gasoline. Diesel. But you prefer, obviously, but the, propane and gasoline, it’s nice to have the other options. Well, this particular one is $300 off from a thousand down to 700 or something. And, it’s only you got to get there and open it today.
00:03:53:14 – 00:04:15:12
Because out here, edge is that they go faster I, I’m sure so we’re going to make sure. Yeah that was mine you know. So we’re going to do that and it’s one of the quieter ones. So it’s more expensive. But normally these are very expensive. And the extended warranty is not that much. I was like 50 bucks for some stuff, like.
00:04:15:14 – 00:04:38:16
Yep, do that. So a few years of, make sure we got good backup to our backup power, because in the winter, yeah, hardly ever run the generator. Because you have almost no power usage. Because you’re not using that particular run all the time, or the air conditioner in the window or that kind of stuff, and then our construction and so on.
00:04:38:18 – 00:05:05:08
We charge up all our batteries and our ecoflow delta twos that we have. And a little loop is, they charge up during the day and then, we use them and then we charge them with the, bus at night. So we have plenty of power. Them portable around the property in the summer. We have to, you know, kind of manage it a little bit more because we turn off the cooler.
00:05:05:09 – 00:05:24:14
We’re not the boss. We’re outside working that kind of thing to make sure we have enough power to get us through the night. Now we have a lot more batteries. Yeah, we have a whole 48 volt system set in our storage trailer. But, you know, we’re not going to, bring that out until we actually have the house.
00:05:24:17 – 00:05:49:24
So this is, just some stuff that we need. I need a yep. Yeah. One is done. Two is one kind of thing when you got to deal with electricity. And, this week we’re getting all supplied up and making sure that we have a, you know, that we can go through the cooler time. We can be really productive when it’s late.
00:05:49:24 – 00:06:16:27
We get up early and, and, get a lot of stuff done. We have, friends that we’ve visited with around the country that are coming by and series. And tomorrow we’ll have some people coming by and they might be bringing some stuff. They got extra, they’re homesteading. But we’ll introduce you to these guys and their story because this has been a thing for years for us as we got to travel around a lot.
00:06:16:27 – 00:06:39:28
But I saw a lot bus Liberty tour. We were making sure that we stopped by and saw people that we knew were doing this, that have been following us on the sites, you know, our, for years, Phoenix and so on. Because this is common and out here in the desert, you go off the the road just a little bit back from the highway and you see a lot of people homesteading.
00:06:40:05 – 00:07:06:07
Well, this is happening all around the country. It’s becoming a thing. So we’ll take you on a ride with us, but we’ll also be visiting some other people too during this. Enjoy. Hey. What we’re doing today is we needed to get more water storage for Donna. Wanted to drain the pool and retain that water and start doing some gardening and having, you know, some trees that we’re going to plant.
00:07:06:07 – 00:07:27:26
We need to have water dispersed around the property before we start doing, plumbing, you know, for everything on 18 acres. So, there’s a place you go to a lot of times Facebook or Craigslist or something like that. Now, this one is in the back lot of an industrial area, and it’s kind of secret until you get in the area.
00:07:27:26 – 00:07:49:13
Then you text him and he tells you where you’re at, and it’s just a lot. He has a lot of different kinds of tanks. Poly tanks, pits, five gallon barrels and all kinds of stuff. Now, what we need is those are food grade, you know, potable water. And you have these that are encased in steel. But what did they have in them?
00:07:49:16 – 00:07:56:21
Well, let’s take a look.
00:07:56:23 – 00:08:23:10
Next fruit flavor for Red bull. That’s what this, had in here. So it’s only semi toxic waste. So we’ll see. You know how that goes. Now, what we did is we got, for us four of these, and that is just you know, enough to get us by. And then, of course, we had to go do some, shopping and get some stuff for the workshop.
00:08:23:17 – 00:08:36:26
So we’re on our way back now, but, you know, it’s great having this trailer. It works really well. We’ll see you back on the land.
00:08:36:28 – 00:09:11:22
Well, from Occupy the Land. Wow. When it rains, these just get green. I mean, shiny green. Damn. This is, the desert just comes alive within days. Now, what we’re doing, last couple of days, we went down and got four more of these IBC totes for water. And now they are food grade. They were hauling, I don’t know, some fruit punch flavoring for Red bull, so it’s only semi toxic waste and the 275 gallons.
00:09:11:22 – 00:09:41:05
So we got two of those. So that’s 550. And I think water is about eight point something pounds per gallon. So anyway I did the math that came out to about 4,800 pounds. It’s less than 5,000 pounds now. The trailer can haul, just over 7,000 pounds payload. So not a problem. You know, our Montero will pull it, so we’re going to go ahead and go get that and show you us wrenching them out.
00:09:41:08 – 00:10:02:09
And, because the high speed pumps at the farm agricultural area that we get our water from is, I mean, it’ll fill one of these in about 60s, literally. So we can fill it up, flush it out, then fill it up, bring it back, and boom, we got our water thing taken care of. So this is, you know, the road.
00:10:02:09 – 00:10:31:15
I need my tractor back. You know, they say to call me tomorrow and see when that’s going to be done because I gotta, you know, fix some road here. It’s getting kind of messed up. So I’m looking forward to that. And so there’s my one neighbor now, Donna has that tank that she fills up on a regular basis with our water tanks that you can see we in the distance back there, you know, we got, you know, the water that’s for us doing the check them over there.
00:10:31:23 – 00:11:01:28
And then we fill this up with we have different tanks. Some of them are potable, some of them are just for construction. And then she pumps it into the bus. So we have water there now what? This is, is the equipment that we’ve had. I had this, you know, bag here with different accessories and so on. And, you know, our cameras and we got lighting in other places and all kinds of attachments to put on the vehicles, put on the tractor, put on, put on, put on.
00:11:02:01 – 00:11:27:13
But it’s so dusty, it’s so dirty, so windy, and it’s so hot. Now, I didn’t want to destroy or mess this stuff up and we were just using our phones. So we’re going to start, you know, putting our microphones on and start, giving you better coverage and footage of that. We’re going to be focusing on, you know, different music and transitions and adding more to the intro and outro of the videos and so on.
00:11:27:19 – 00:11:47:25
But, you know, we’re working, you know, this is activism. This is getting her done and documenting it is important. But, yeah, it’s important that we get stuff done. Now, what we’re going to be doing here, we got a bunch of two by three is to finish out the framing for the shelves we’re doing in the shipping container.
00:11:47:25 – 00:12:14:00
We got my pegboard I’m going to do for, putting behind a little table work area at the end of the container. And then, you know, we always get, you know, some more Portland cement whenever we go in just cause and, some two by fours or some other stuff that we’re going to be doing. So it’s just enough and some hardware and things that we got just to, keep ourselves busy while we’re tractor still on the shop.
00:12:14:07 – 00:12:35:22
It’s going to be what they found out is that the entire wiring harness and the computer needs to be replaced. It was doing some short that was making it to where the RPM would drop, and it was being really annoying. So I took it in and I’m like, hey, you know, get her done so that, you know, them diagnosing it and finally, you know, believe in me.
00:12:35:22 – 00:13:01:20
And then, ordering the parts and, and having to take the cab off to replaced, I had to thank. So hopefully that will be done by middle of next week and then we can really get on, doing the walls higher on the dome. Well, the main thing is, oh, we can get down to work working. And the main thing is, is that, we have a bunch of the other little things that we need to get done, you know, like this.
00:13:01:20 – 00:13:25:27
Got to take all of the tire, take it in Discount Tire and put it on, you know, get dolled up, you know, muscle it. And, put that on. So we’re going to go ahead and probably I got to wait for the tractor in front of where the doors open on the shipping container. There is a concrete slab that I want to put out there, and I may in between the two trailers.
00:13:25:27 – 00:13:45:08
Also, for a good work area, there will stretch some of these, triangle shade claws and so on that have worked out really well. You know, we got that, you know, over there on that dome just to test it out to see how they work. And, they work pretty well and they’re pretty sturdy, and they’re like a big sail, too.
00:13:45:08 – 00:14:04:24
But, so we’re going to be doing a lot of that and designing a pad that I can take stuff out. And we’re kind of in the round on the concrete pad in front of the shipping container, and it’s just nice, you know, for the next God, eight months. It’s going to be really nice. So I want to be outside.
00:14:04:26 – 00:14:30:26
And, we still got to take the soil from the sand dam. We’re diverting all the water to and putting it over there, you know, which is the building pad for this. So you can see we got a lot of room there. 18 acres is, you know, it’s enough. And so we’re going to go ahead today and do a bunch of prep for when we get the tractor back.
00:14:31:00 – 00:14:52:29
So we’re not having to worry about that. This is experimenting with a lot of these new cameras and stuff too. So okay. Long winded here because I want to make sure you guys know what’s going on. But if I do a bunch of footage with the other and I was add audio, then pick up, the videos that they’re all there because you got to take the card out, load it into a computer.
00:14:52:29 – 00:15:15:22
It’s just a pain, man. I got stuff to do. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing it. Doing, you know. So that’s what we’re going to be working on today. Now this is the only place that we have shade, you know, it’s, well, we have, you know, some places in inside buildings, but I mean, just to come out and just be out of the sun, certainly as the sun starts to get lower in the sky.
00:15:15:24 – 00:15:37:05
This is on the north side of the bus. So this table is, you know, where we can kind of set stuff out, where we’re going to go do stuff. Now, what are you going to do with the water in the pool? You think the plan is for that? I need to get some IVC totes and then transfer first clean the water and then transfer it to the tanks and cover it so we can use it for house water.
00:15:37:07 – 00:15:55:13
Well, can’t we just take it, cover the pool and take it from there? We can. But I just want to take that down. Just get it on. Get it done. But yeah. Cause it held up pretty well. There’s no leaks or holes. It filtered. It was nice water. The only thing before you get do anything, you have to go in and clean out the what the bugs.
00:15:55:13 – 00:16:14:28
The bugs. Bugs. Like you order the bugs. And it’s funny because every season, every couple of weeks, it seems like we have a different crop of bugs sometimes, you know, in the beginning of the spring, there’s bees and there’s flies, and then there’s, these dragonfly things and these little water bug looking things, and now it’s gnats and Mars.
00:16:14:28 – 00:16:32:10
I mean, it’s it goes in kind of stages, but they always go for the water. So we just, we have a, pretty, tight screen that we can just go and clean it all out. But before I save the water for the bus, I do need to go and clean it out one more time. I don’t think I’m going to fill it anymore until, until I can dump it out.
00:16:32:13 – 00:16:55:24
So, you know, that’s one thing, is that we have, the little hand screen, and I’ll show you what we do. It’s Ernie’s favorite thing. It’s my favorite thing. So, you know, you go in, it looks pretty. Did you clean it? I just did it. But it’s cloudy. But you you go, you do this, you get a bunch of little bugs, and then you tap it and it goes down on this side.
00:16:55:26 – 00:17:18:03
And then here comes the what? Lizards. Lizards love the bugs. So they kind of clean up on it. We got pet lizards there. Oh the food God’s done dumped out. You know, some goodies for us. Oh, and it’s nice and soggy too. Thank you. You know, the the pool is right now it’s about I don’t know, 72, which is kind of cool, but when it’s still warm outside you can jump in there real quick and cool off.
00:17:18:03 – 00:17:34:09
We still do that, but, a lot less than we used to. So it’s time. Yeah, I love Japanese baths, you know, just take the picture and pour over me in doing that. It’s cold. Yeah. You know, I think last night might have been one of the last ones here directly, but it was a success. We we really enjoyed it.
00:17:34:09 – 00:17:49:10
We used it a lot better than I thought it would be. And it was, and it stayed clean. I’m not a big fan of this filter. It doesn’t really get anything from the bottom. It just kind of circulates it. But I don’t know if you can make it out. But you see, the dust just goes to the bottom.
00:17:49:12 – 00:18:08:16
One of the best way to clean this out is we just kind of sweep all the dust to one end. Then we take a hose and siphon it out and just put a little vacuum end on it, and it just kind of sucks. All that dirt out and puts it into the wash behind it. So you lose probably at least 20, 30 gallons or something.
00:18:08:21 – 00:18:23:08
But, you know, we can always we always have water ready to fill it back up. And then it’s clean for a while. But out here there’s a I mean, when you start digging in the soil any little bit or you get any little wind, it’s like moondust out here. It’s very, very fine. So that filter doesn’t pick it up.
00:18:23:13 – 00:18:46:10
So we might try something else different next year as far as filtration, but it’s worked pretty well this year. One of the things that was really, you know, just surprised was the wind. And we are always getting that dust devil coming right over us. Yes. I mean it’s you know, they that the land probably in the summer probably gets I don’t know through our construction site.
00:18:46:10 – 00:19:10:24
How many times do we get a dust devil through the construction site? Well, it seems like every time at least that we’re working on it. That’s like once a day. I mean, it’s a thing. So what we did is we bought a, which is another thing we’ll be putting up. We got a windmill, you know, and it’s, generate electricity because, you know, our friend Bob has a windmill, and it was just you keep you from being angry at the wind all the time.
00:19:10:27 – 00:19:33:26
All right. Cool. Let’s make it power. Now, one thing that we did is we got. Isn’t it expensive? It’s only 100 bucks or something on Teemu. I mean, we were getting a little stuff like this experiment with on there. It has a double date. Gonna start to put in the air. You probably can’t see there, but, yeah, you put it in one side and it goes for long until it turns into dirt.
00:19:33:28 – 00:20:01:11
You know, it looks like our probably ground up coffee or something. And then, you start doing the other side and you just keep doing it. Then you feed it out, put it out in five gallon buckets and start using it. Now we have a larger compost area over there that is just, a lot of the foliage from around here, because one of the things that we’re going to do is as we start to dress this up, we trim all this dead branches of stuff around all of these bushes.
00:20:01:11 – 00:20:16:14
And so a cactus kind of, you know, we had that. I told you about that, but I, I never dragged you over here to show you this. Most. I don’t know if it grew up in here. It blew in here. And it just sort of. So I don’t know when I was a recent I mean, this has been here a while.
00:20:16:18 – 00:20:39:17
I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen. No, I didn’t I see this kind before for a while. And then just one day there’s a couple places we have like those opportunity growth of, you know, cactus and stuff around. But we’re probably going to be transplanting a lot of stuff. And with the back up, the check dams of the washes that we have and it makes these areas really go green.
00:20:39:19 – 00:20:54:01
And, you know, this isn’t even really, you know, the super green. It’s just getting started to go, you know, it rains a little bit and here comes well we’re going to be doing that with trees. Yeah I don’t know if you can pick it up. But like the whole desert like around here is is a lot more green than it normally is.
00:20:54:01 – 00:21:06:25
So just yeah, I know it’s just green green green green green green.
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we tackle monsoon
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we take advantage
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we push forward